Robert Hurst is the author of The Art of [Urban] Cycling, The Art of Mountain Biking: Singletrack Skills for All Riders, The Cyclist's Manifesto, Best Bike Rides Denver and Boulder, Road Biking Colorado's Front Range, Mountain Biking Colorado's San Juan Mountains: Durango and Telluride, and The Bicycle Commuter's Handbook.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it?

Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

-- Twain

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In addition to the American Petroleum Institute, major energy companies — ConocoPhillips, the oil and gas company; Alpha Natural Resources, a coal mining giant; and American Electric Power, the nation’s biggest coal consumer — have recently joined the Republican Attorneys General Association, bringing in hundreds of thousands of additional dollars to the group, internal documents show.

By last year, the association was starting to pull in so much money under Mr. Pruitt’s leadership that it decided to break free from its partnership with the Republican State Leadership Committee, a group that represents state elected officials. Within months, the association also set up the Rule of Law Defense Fund, yet another legal entity that allows companies benefiting from the actions of Mr. Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general to make anonymous donations, in unlimited amounts. Fund-raising skyrocketed.

The Bureau of Land Management has initiated an environmental review of the right-of-way Enefit needs for its proposed utility corridor, which would connect its mine and processing plant to the Bonanza Power Plant outside Vernal. The corridor would also carry a 16-inch pipeline to Chevron’s east-to-west line that runs 11.5 miles north of the mine, as well as an 8-inch natural gas line, a 30-inch water line and a second 138-kilovolt power line. The pipelines would run underground.

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The story goes on…

But Hrenko stressed that Enefit’s “retort” process uses no water, although some will be needed for dust control and returning spent shale to the mine for reclamation….

And…

“It’s an extremely efficient process where we produce all the power to operate the project and we’ll put power into the grid,” Hrenko said.

Anybody ever heard of a driverless train being used, loaded with hazardous materials? Several obvious problems with that scheme.

Rail company spokesman Christophe Journet said the train had been immobilised in a neighbouring village before a scheduled crew change, but for an unknown reason had then started rolling downhill into Lac-Megantic.

Eye witnesses said that by the time the driverless train reached the town it was travelling at considerable speed.

Local media reported 60 people missing, although police officials have not confirmed this.

Colorado health authorities will not fully enforce new EPA rules designed to protect people from air pollution at oil and gas facilities.

The state’s Air Quality Control Commission voted instead for a partial adoption of the federal clean-air rules. They plan to hold public meetings next year to consider full implementation.

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials on Thursday issued a statement saying residents already are protected under “state rules that cover many aspects of EPA’s rules.” The statement said the commission worried that adopting the new standards “could potentially trigger unduly burdensome permitting requirements” for companies.

State officials said they would make no further comment on the issue and did not respond to questions Thursday.

People should be enraged about this. Enraged at Chevron, enraged at the fake govt. investigations and blatantly captured regulators that continue to blow sulfur dioxide up the public’s ass.

Air quality officials say Chevron fashioned a pipe inside its refinery that routed hydrocarbon gases around monitoring equipment and allowed them to be burned off without officials knowing about it. Some of the gases escaped into the air, but because the company didn’t record them, investigators have no way of being certain of the level of pollution exposure to thousands of people who live downwind from the plant.

“They were routing gas through that pipe to the flare that they were not monitoring,” said Jack Broadbent, executive director of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, whose inspectors uncovered what Chevron was doing and ordered the bypass pipe removed.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s criminal enforcement unit opened an investigation in early 2012, more than two years after the local inspectors made their discovery, according to air-quality officials and others familiar with the probe. The investigation is still open, and Chevron employees have been interviewed.

In case you missed it, years ago Chevron was required to install pollution monitoring equipment as part of one of those sweetheart settlement deals after they were caught violating the rules. Years ago, it was discovered that the plant had installed pipes bypassing this pollution monitoring equipment so the refinery’s unmonitored poison gases could be flared into the open air. Years ago. This became public recently only after the SF Chronicle was able to review records, which they requested as a result of the unrelated fire at the refinery.

Interesting parallels with Denver’s chronically leaking Suncor refinery. A refinery in blatant violation of all sorts of laws, but without any fear of a real crackdown by those public officials who are supposed to do something about it. So the violations continue, for years, until the truth manages to escape the regulators who’ve been keeping it from the public.